大象传媒

One of the most lasting memories I have of the war years is, as a 5 year old schoolboy living on Bridle Lane at Leabrooks, and seeing British soldiers escorting German prisoners of war past the bottom of the lane enroute to the POW camp at Swanwick Hayes. An establishment which nowadays still exists but is a local Conference centre. Sometimes the column of marching prisoners would be perhaps as many as 100, but I cannot ever recall seeing more than half a dozen 'Tommies' providing the escort! At the time this sight did not really register too strongly with us lads for "the war" was something happening a long way off and was something of which we were only distantly aware. This POW camp was in fact the one from where Franz Von Werra escaped and made his way to Hucknall aerodrome, where he attempted to start a Spitfire to return to Germany. This story was illustrated in the film "The One that got away" starring Hardy Kruger as Von Werra. Following the end of the war the POW camp was "civilianised" with the removal of the perimeter wire fencing and the conversion of the billets into individual homes for local families already on the waiting list for council properties.

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